Because the left jumps straight to banning things, confiscating things (or praising programs in other countries that have included confiscation), and then says that people who don't agree with them are evil people. The right curls up into a fetal position and fears having a discussion, so they just tread water and hope the whole thing goes away. Meanwhile, no one discusses some of the common sense issues that have been pointed out (such as why do we continually have people not being added to lists which should be flagging them as ineligible to buy guns?) - because if they do, they get shouted down with phrases like, oh, I don't know... "you care more about freedom than you do about kids dying."
Democrats don't want to reform process because it's easier to just pass more layers of legislation so they can say they've done something. It doesn't appease progressives that you streamlined reporting. They just see that as window dressing, since the main issue in their eyes is that people can buy guns. Gun violence is the gift that keeps on giving, because they know they can propose legislation that won't actually stop anything, and if it doesn't pass, they can campaign on what they tried to do and failed because of evil republicans. And if it does pass, and doesn't stop the shootings (because we all know it won't) they can say "see, we didn't do enough, we have to be stricter" and the bar moves on down the line.
Republicans may or may not want to reform process, but they're not willing to spend time and political capital doing it, because they don't think it will make people like them more, and that's pretty much what drives most republican legislators.
So we just argue about stuff that doesn't matter and won't help. And some then say that means we don't care about kids dying, because we didn't just lay down and accept whatever solution the loudest yellers happened to demand.
How many violations were committed during the Obama administration of people illegally obtaining firearms? And how many did they prosecute?
http://www.dailywire.com/news/23282...ma-administration-not-hank-berrien#exit-modal
This older CNN article lays out some of the Obama administration arguments about why enforcement was down.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politics/obama-executive-orders-gun-control-enforcement-gap/index.html
But since prosecution is apparently up about 23 percent this year on those cases, I'm not sure the Obama argument is completely honest. If it really is about needing more funding to prosecute gun laws, it seems like that'd be pretty popular legislation to introduce. And I suspect it would gain a lot of bi-partisan support.